now (as in our Constitution) the people's persons and the people's dwelling's are declared to be inviolable. And where once the king reserved the right to veto and to initiate legislation, so now (as again in our Constitution) the people reserve the right to veto and to initiate legislation. And this is the plain and simple meaning of the two instruments of the Referendum and the Initiative, Their effect is to shift sovereignty from the parliament to the people, where the revolutions of the 17th and 18th ^ centuries shifted sovereignty from the king to the parliament.
It frequently happens that theories (for whatever they may be worth) are carried to their logical ends by practical people and not by theorists—for theory generally lags in the rear of practice. So it happened in this case. For it was the soberly practical and conservative people of Switzerland who in modern times first devised the Referendum, and then the Initiative. Since then they have been adopted in many countries, chief of which are Belgium, Australia, and many of the American States; and they appear in most of the constitutions recently adopted in Europe. But it is in Switzerland that they can most usefully be studied, for there they have a solid experience of ninety years continuous practice behind them.
The Referendum came first; and in its modern form was first adopted in the Constitution of the canton of St. Gall in 1831, the second and third articles of which read:
Art. 2.—The people of the canton are sovereign. Sovereignty, which is the sum of all political powers, resides in the whole body of citizens.
Art. 3.—It results from this that the people themselves exercise the legislative powers, and every law is submitted to their sanction. This sanction is the right of the people to refuse to recognise any law submitted to them, and to prevent its execution in virtue of their sovereign power.
